• HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    What are you talking about? Yes, you absolutely can. The control rods speed up or slow down the reaction, which in turn changes how much heat it’s pumping out, which controls how much electricity is being generated. Nuclear output isn’t a single constant, always giving exactly the same number of megawatts of power.

    • DerGottesknecht@feddit.de
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      4 months ago

      But the amount of cycles is not limitless, thermal and pressurefluctuations lead to material weakness over time. And a steeper gradient leads to faster deterioration

    • NoLifeKing@ani.social
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      4 months ago

      No because fast changes damage the rods, the fuel, and the pressure tank, to many fast cycles would cause the reactor to get damaged and a damaged reactor is one that is damaged forever, nobody can repair the stuff and pressure damage is hard to repair.

      I didn’t say you can’t change the output, but doing that is not economically and ecologicaly a good thing. Also the change speed isn’t fast enough for a electricity grid, a grid needs to hold a constant frequency all over the grid and balance throughout it, peak and low demands are very frequent and thats not possible to cover with nuclear at all, because the output changes are way to slow.